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A TENNYSON CALENDAR 



A TENNYSON 



CALENDAR 



SELECTED AND ARRANGED BY 



ANNA HARRIS SMITH 



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NEW YORK 



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THOMAS Y. CROWELL 5c CO. «§£ 

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PUBLISHERS 



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COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 1907 



LIKHARY of CONGRESS 
Two Cooks Rucolved 
AUG 21 1907 
v Cooyncht Entry 

CLASSA XXe.,Ho. 

/8SS3 6 

COPY O. 



TKsss-3 



COMPOSITION AND ELECTROTYPE PLATES BY 
D. B. UPDIKE, THE MERRYMGUNT PRESS, BOSTON 



JANUARY 

JANUARY FIRST 

THE night is starry and cold, my friend, 
And the New-year blithe and bold, my 
friend, 
Comes up to take his own. 

There 's a new foot on the floor, my friend, 

A new face at the door, my friend, 

A new face at the door. 

Death of the Old Year 

JANUARY SECOND 

The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 

And God fulfils himself in many ways, 

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 

Morte D" Arthur 

JANUARY THIRD 

Fly, happy happy sails and bear the Press; 
Fly happy with the mission of the Cross ; 
Knit land to land, and blowing havenward 
With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll, 
Enrich the markets of the golden year. 

The Golden Year 

[ ■ ] 



JANUARY FOURTH 

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping 

something new: 

That which they have done but earnest of the 

things that they shall do. 

Locksley Hall 

JANUARY FIFTH 

He heeded not reviling tones, 

Nor sold his heart to idle moans, 

Tho' cursed and scorn'd, and bruised with stones : 

But looking upward, full of grace, 

He pray'd, and from a happy place 

God's glory smote him on the face. 

The Two Voices 

JANUARY SIXTH 

For tho' the Giant Ages heave the hill 
And break the shore, and evermore 
Make and break, and work their will ; 
Tho' world on world in myriad myriads roll 
Round us, each with different powers, 
And other forms of life than ours, 
What know we greater than the soul ? 
On God and Godlike men we build our trust. 

Ode on the Death of Wellington 

JANUARY SEVENTH 

Bring in great logs and let them lie, 
To make a solid core of heat ; 



Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat 
Of all things ev'n as he were by. 



In Memor'iam 



JANUARY EIGHTH 

I will not shut me from my kind, 
And, lest I stiffen into stone, 
I will not eat my heart alone, 
Nor feed with sighs a passing wind. 



In Memor'iam 



JANUARY NINTH 

O purblind race of miserable men, 
How many among us at this very hour 
Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves, 
By taking true for false, or false for true ; 
Here, thro' the feeble twilight of this world 
. Groping, how many, until we pass and reach 
That other, where we see as we are seen ' 



Enid 



JANUARY TENTH 

Make knowledge circle with the winds; 

But let her herald, Reverence, fly 

Before her to whatever sky 
Bear seed of men and growth of minds. 

"Love Thou Thy Land" 

JANUARY ELEVENTH 

I said, "The years with change advance: 

If I make dark my countenance, 

I shut my life from happier chance." 

The Ttvo Voices 

[3] 



JANUARY TWELFTH 

Reign thou above the storms of sorrow and ruth 
That roar beneath; unshaken peace hath won 

thee: 
So shalt thou pierce the woven glooms of truth ; 
So shall the blessing of the meek be on thee ; 
So in thine hour of dawn, the body's youth, 

An honourable eld shall come upon thee. 

Sonnet 

JANUARY THIRTEENTH 

Let there be thistles, there are grapes ; 

If old things, there are new ; 
Ten thousand broken lights and shapes, 

Yet glimpses of the true. 
Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme, 

We lack not rhymes and reasons, 
As on this whirligig of Time 

We circle with the seasons. 

Will Waterproofs Monologue 

JANUARY FOURTEENTH 

Late, late, so late ! and dark the night and chill ! 
Late, late, so late ! but we can enter still. 
Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now. 

No light had we: for that we do repent; 
And learning this, the bridegroom will relent. 
Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now. 

Guinevere 

[4] 



JANUARY FIFTEENTH 

Watch what main-currents draw the years : 
Cut Prejudice against the grain : 
But gentle words are always gain : 

Regard the weakness of thy peers. 

"Love Thou Thy Land" 

JANUARY SIXTEENTH 

Is this enough to say 

That my desire, like all strongest hopes, 

By its own energy fulfill'd itself, 

Merged in completion ? 

The Gardener s Daughter 

JANUARY SEVENTEENTH 

Two children in two neighbour villages 
Playing mad pranks along the heathy leas ; 
Two strangers meeting at a festival ; 
Two lovers whispering by an orchard wall; 
Two lives bound fast in one with golden ease; 
Two graves grass-green beside a gray church- 
tower, 
Wash'd with still rains and daisy-blossomed ; 
Two children in one hamlet born and bred ; 
So runs the round of life from hour to hour. 

Circumstance 

JANUARY EIGHTEENTH 

Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the 
proud ; 

[5] 



Turn thy wild wheel thro' sunshine, storm, and 

cloud ; 
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate. 

Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or 
frown ; 
With that wild wheel we go not up or down ; 
Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great. 

Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands; 

Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands ; 

For man is man and master of his fate. 

Enid 

JANUARY NINETEENTH 

Oh ! who would fight and march and counter- 
march, 
Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field, 
And shovell'd up into a bloody trench 

Where no one knows? 

Audley Court 



JANUARY TWENTIETH 



He, 



Vex'd with a morbid devil in his blood 
That veiPd the world with jaundice, hid his face 
From all men, and commercing with himself, 
He lost the sense that handles daily life — 
That keeps us all in order more or less — 
And sick of home went overseas for change. 

Walking to the Mail 

[6] 



JANUARY TWENTY-FIRST 

For Love himself took part against himself 
To warn us off, and Duty loved of Love — 

this world's curse, — beloved but hated — came 

Like Death betwixt thy dear embrace and mine, 

And crying, "Who is this? behold thy bride," 

She push'd me from thee. 

Love and Duty 

JANUARY TWENTY-SECOND 

For me, I thank the saints, I am not great. 
For if there ever come a grief to me 

1 cry my cry in silence, and have done : 

None knows it, and my tears have brought me 

good: 
But even were the griefs of little ones 
As great as those of great ones, yet this grief 
Is added to the griefs the great must bear, 
That howsoever much they may desire 
Silence, they cannot weep behind a cloud. 

Guinevere 

JANUARY TWENTY-THIRD 

Shy she was, and I thought her cold ; 

Thought her proud, and fled over the sea; 
Fill'd I was with folly and spite, 

When Ellen Adair was dying for me. 

Bitterly wept I over the stone : 
Bitterly weeping I turn'd away : 

[7 ] 



There lies the body of Ellen Adair ! 
And there the heart of Edward Gray ! 

Edward Gray 

JANUARY TWENTY-FOURTH 
Love that hath us in the net, 
Can he pass, and we forget? 
Many suns arise and set. 
Many a chance the years beget. 
Love the gift is Love the debt. 

Even so. • 



The Miller s Daughter 



JANUARY TWENTY-FIFTH 
Love is hurt with jar and fret. 
Love is made a vague regret. 
Eyes with idle tears are wet. 
Idle habit links us yet. 
What is love ? for we forget : 
Ah, no ! no ! 



The Miller's Daughter 



JANUARY TWENTY-SIXTH 

Forgive! How many will say, "forgive," and 
find 
A sort of absolution in the sound 
To hate a little longer ! No ; the sin 
That neither God nor man can well forgive, 
Hypocrisy, I saw it in him at once. 



Sea Dreams 



[8] 



JANUARY TWENTY-SEVENTH 

Overquick art thou 
To catch a loathly plume fall'n from the wing 
Of that foul bird of rapine whose whole prey- 
Is man's good name. 

Vvvien 

JANUARY TWENTY-EIGHTH 

The world will not believe a man repents : 
And this wise world of ours is mainly right. 
Full seldom' does a man repent, or use 
Both grace and will to pick the vicious quitch 
Of blood and custom wholly out of him, 
And make all clean, and plant himself afresh. 

Enid 

JANUARY TWENTY-NINTH 

Ah yet, tho' all the world forsake, 

Tho' fortune clip my wings, 
I will not cramp my heart, nor take 

Half-views of men and things. 

Will Waterproofs Monologue 

JANUARY THIRTIETH 

O we will walk this world, 

Yoked in all exercise of noble end, 

And so thro' those dark gates across the wild 

That no man knows. 

The Princess 



[9] 



JANUARY THIRTY-FIRST 

In vain shalt thou, or any, call 

The spirits from their golden day, 
Except, like them, thou too canst say 

My spirit is at peace with all. 

They haunt the silence of the breast, 
Imaginations calm and fair, 
The memory like a cloudless air, 

The conscience as a sea at rest : 

But when the heart is full of din, 

And doubt beside the portal waits, 
They can but listen at the gates, 

And hear the household jar within. 



In Memoriam 



I >° ] 



r 



FEBRUARY 

FEBRUARY FIRST 

WHEN cats run home and light is come, 
And dew is cold upon the ground, 
And the far-off stream is dumb, 
And the whirring sail goes round, 
And the whirring sail goes round ; 
Alone and warming his five wits, 
The white owl in the belfry sits. 

The White Owl 

FEBRUARY SECOND 

Every day hath its night: 
Every night its morn : 
Thorough dark and bright 
Winged hours are borne ; 

Ah ! welaway ! 
Seasons flower and fade ; 
Golden calm and storm 

Mingle day by day. 
There is no bright form 
Doth not cast a shade — 
Ah ! welaway ! 

Song 



[«] 



FEBRUARY THIRD 

God gives us love. Something to love 

He lends us; but, when love is grown 

To ripeness, that on which it throve 

Falls off, and love is left alone. 

To J. S. 

FEBRUARY FOURTH 

Love thou thy land, with love far-brought 
From out the storied Past, and used 
Within the Present, but transfused 
Thro' future time by power of thought. 

"Love Thou Thy Land" 

FEBRUARY FIFTH 

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, 

These three alone lead life to sovereign power. 

Yet not for power, (power of herself 

Would come uncall'd for,) but to live by law, 

Acting the law we live by without fear; 

And, because right is right, to follow right 

Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence. 

(Enone 

FEBRUARY SIXTH 

What good should follow this, if this were done? 
What harm, undone? deep harm to disobey, 
Seeing obedience is the bond of ruleJ 
Were it well to obey then, if a king demand 
An aft unprofitable, against himself? 

Morte & Arthur 

I •*] 



FEBRUARY SEVENTH 

Deliver not the tasks of might 

To weakness, neither hide the ray 
From those, not blind, who wait for day, 

Tho' sitting girt with doubtful light. 

"Love Thou Thy Land" 
FEBRUARY EIGHTH 

Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, for- 
ward let us range. 

Let the great world spin for ever down the ring- 
ing grooves of change. 

Locksley Hall 

FEBRUARY NINTH 

Nothing will die; 

All things will change 

Through eternity. 

'Tis the world's winter; 

Autumn and summer 

Are gone long ago. 

Nothing Will Die 

FEBRUARY TENTH 

All thoughts, all creeds, all dreams are true, 

All visions wild and strange ; 
Man is the measure of all truth 

Unto himself. All truth is change : 

All men do walk in sleep, and all 
Have faith in that they dream: 

[ '3] 



For all things are as they seem to all, 
And all things flow like a stream. 

Ot peovres 

FEBRUARY ELEVENTH 

My name, once mine, now thine, is closelier 
mine, 
For fame, could fame be mine, that fame were 

thine, 
And shame, could shame be thine, that shame 
were mine. 

So trust me not at all or all in all. 

Vivien 

FEBRUARY TWELFTH 

In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours, 
Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers: 
Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all. 

It is the little rift within the lute, 
That by and by will make the music mute, 
And ever widening slowly silence all. 



Vivien 



FEBRUARY THIRTEENTH 

"Thro' slander, meanest spawn of Hell 
(And women's slander is the worst), 
And you, whom once I loved so well, 
Thro* you, my life will be accurst." 



[«+] 



I spoke with heart, and heat and force, 

I shook her breast with vague alarms — 

Like torrents from a mountain source 

We rush'd into each other's arms. 

The Letters 

FEBRUARY FOURTEENTH 

We parted : sweetly gleam'd the stars, 
And sweet the vapour-braided blue, 
Low breezes fann'd the belfry bars, 

As homeward by the church I drew. 
The very graves appear'd to smile, 
So fresh they rose in shadow'd swells ; 
"Dark porch," I said,"and silent aisle, 

There comes a sound of marriage bells." 

The Letters 

FEBRUARY FIFTEENTH 

Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in 

his glowing hands ; 
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden 

sands. 

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all 

the chords with might ; 

Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in 

music out of sight. 

Locksley Hall 



I'S] 



FEBRUARY SIXTEENTH 

All precious things, discover'd late, 
To those that seek them issue forth ; 

For love in sequel works with fate, 

And draws the veil from hidden worth. 

The Day Dream 

FEBRUARY SEVENTEENTH 

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon 

days like these ? 

Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to 

golden keys. 

Locksley Hall 

FEBRUARY EIGHTEENTH 

Cursed be the social wants that sin against the 

strength of youth ! 
Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the 

living truth ! 

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest 
Nature's rule ! 

Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd fore- 
head of the fool ! 

Locksley Hall 

FEBRUARY NINETEENTH 

A still small voice spake unto me, 
" Thou art so full of misery, 
Were it not better not to be?" 

[ '6] 



Then to the still small voice I said, 

"Let me not cast in endless shade 

What is so wonderfully made." 

The Tivo Voices 

FEBRUARY TWENTIETH 
"If all be dark, vague voice," I said, 
"These things are wrapt in doubt and dread, 
Nor canst thou show the dead are dead. 

"The sap dries up: the plant declines. 
A deeper tale my heart divines." 

The Two Voices 

FEBRUARY TWENTY-FIRST 

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust : 

Thou madest man, he knows not why ; 
He thinks he was not made to die ; 
And thou hast made him : thou art just. 

In Memoriam 

FEBRUARY TWENTY-SECOND 

And me this knowledge bolder made, 

Or else I had not dared to flow 
In these words toward you, and invade 

Even with a verse your holy woe. 

'T is strange that those we lean on most, 

Those in whose laps our limbs are nursed, 

Fall into shadow, soonest lost: 

Those we love first are taken first. 

To J. S. 

[ 17] 



FEBRUARY TWENTY-THIRD 

Behold, we know not anything; 

I can but trust that good shall fall 
At last — far off — at last, to all, 

And every winter change to spring. 

So runs my dream : but what am I ? 

An infant crying in the night : 

An infant crying for the light : 

And with no language but a cry. 

In Memoriam 

FEBRUARY TWENTY-FOURTH 

They never learned to love who never knew to 

weep. 

Love and Sorrow 

FEBRUARY TWENTY-FIFTH 

" Forward, the Light Brigade ! " 
Was there a man dismay'd ? 
Not tho' the soldier knew 

Some one had blunderM : 
Their's not to make reply, 
Their's not to reason why, 
Their's but to do and die, 
Into the valley of Death 

Rode the six hundred. 

The Charge of the Light Brigade 



[ .8 ] 



FEBRUARY TWENTY-SIXTH 

For once, when I was up so high in pride 
That I was halfway down the slope to Hell, 
By overthrowing me you threw me higher. 

Enid 

FEBRUARY TWENTY-SEVENTH 

"Not war, if possible, 

king," I said, "lest from the abuse of war, 

The desecrated shrine, the trampled year, [flower 

The smouldering homestead, and the household 

Torn from the lintel — all the common wrong — 

A smoke go up thro' which I loom to her 

Three times a monster." 

The Princess 

FEBRUARY TWENTY-EIGHTH 

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that 

Honour feels, 

And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each 

other's heels. 

Locksley Hall 

FEBRUARY TWENTY-NINTH 

Let the sweet heavens endure, 

Not close and darken above me 
Before I am quite quite sure 

That there is one to love me ; 
Then let come what come may 
To a life that has been so sad, 

1 shall have had my day. 

Maud 

[ '9] 



MARCH 

MARCH FIRST 

HE spoke among you, and the Man who 
spoke ; 
Who neve'r sold the truth to serve the hour, 
Nor palter'd with Eternal God for power; 
Who let the turbid streams of rumour flow 
Thro' either babbling world of high and low ; 
Whose life was work, whose language rife 
With rugged maxims hewn from life ; 
Who never spoke against a foe — 

Ode on the Death of Wellington 

MARCH SECOND 

The path of duty was the way to glory : 

He, that ever following her commands, 

On with toil of heart and knees and hands, 

Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won 

His path upward, and prevail'd, 

Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled 

Are close upon the shining table-lands 

To which our God Himself is moon and sun. 

Ode on the Death of Wellington 



[21 ] 



MARCH THIRD 

O lift your natures up : 
Embrace our aims : work out your freedom. Girls, 
Knowledge is now no more a fountain seal'd : 
Drink deep, until the habits of the slave, 
The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite 
And slander, die. Better not be at all 

Than not be noble. 

The Princess 

k 

MARCH FOURTH 

Like men, like manners: like breeds like, they say. 
Kind nature is the best : those manners next 
That fit us like a nature second-hand ; 
Which are indeed the manners of the great. 

Walking to the Mail 

MARCH FIFTH 

Will some one say, then why not ill for good ? 
Why took ye not your pastime ? To that man 
My work shall answer, since I knew the right 
And did it ; for a man is not as God, 
But then most Godlike being most a man. 

Lo<ve and Duty 

MARCH SIXTH 

Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know 
The woman's cause is man's : they rise or sink 
Together, dwarPd or godlike, bond or free : 
For she that out of Lethe scales with man 

[«■] 



The shining steps of Nature, shares with man 
His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal, 
Stays all the fair young planet in her hands — 
If she be small, slight-natured, miserable, 
How shall men grow? 



The Princess 



MARCH SEVENTH 

Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres 

I find a magic bark ; 
I leap on board : no helmsman steers : 

I float till all is dark. 
A gentle sound, an awful light ! 

Three angels bear the holy Grail: 
With folded feet, in stoles of white, 

On sleeping wings they sail. 
Ah, blessed vision ! blood of God ! 

My spirit beats her mortal bars, 

As down dark tides the glory slides, 

And star-like mingles with the stars. 

Sir Galahad 

MARCH EIGHTH 

Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the 

younger day : 
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. 

Locksley Hall 

MARCH NINTH 

For the drift of the Maker is dark, an Isis hid by 
the veil. 

[••s] 



Who knows the ways of the world, how God will 

bring them about ? 
Our planet is one, the suns are many, the world 

is wide. 
Shall I weep if a Poland fall? shall I shriek if a 

Hungary fail? 
Or an infant civilization be ruled with rod or with 

knout ? 

I have not made the world, and He that made it 

will guide. 

Maud 

MARCH TENTH 

Heaven weeps above the earth all night till morn, 
In darkness weeps, as all ashamed to weep, 
Because the earth hath made her state forlorn 
With self-wrought evils of unnumbered years, 
And doth the fruit of her dishonour reap. 
And all the day heaven gathers back her tears 
Into her own blue eyes so clear and deep, 
And showering down the glory of lightsome day, 
Smiles on the earth's worn brow to win her if she 

may. 

The Tears of Heaven 

MARCH ELEVENTH 

O thou, new-year, delaying long, 

Delayest the sorrow in my blood, 

That longs to burst a frozen bud, 

And flood a fresher throat with song. 

In Memoriam 

[H] 



MARCH TWELFTH 

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers and he 

bears a laden breast, 

Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness 

of his rest. 

Locksley Hall 

MARCH THIRTEENTH 

Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing pur- 
pose runs, 
And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the 

process of the suns. 

Locksley Hall 

MARCH FOURTEENTH 

Think you this mould of hopes and fears 

. Could find no statelier than his peers 

In yonder hundred million spheres ? 

The Tnvo Voices 

MARCH FIFTEENTH 

Would that my gloomed fancy were 

As thine, my mother, when with brows 

Propped on thy knees, my hands upheld 

In thine, I listened to thy vows, 

For me outpoured in holiest prayer — 

For me unworthy! — and beheld 

Thy mild deep eyes upraised, that knew 

The beauty and repose of faith, 

And the clear spirit shining through. 

Oh ! wherefore do we grow awry — 

From roots which strike so deep? 

[25] Supposed Confessions 



MARCH SIXTEENTH 

But help me, heaven, for surely I repent. 

For what is true repentance but in thought — 

Not ev'n in inmost thought to think again 

The sins that made the past so pleasant to us : 

And I have sworn never to see him more, 

To see him more. 

Guinevere 

MARCH SEVENTEENTH 

The little rift within the lover's lute, 

Or little pitted speck in garner'd fruit, 

That rotting inward slowly moulders all. 

Vvvien 

MARCH EIGHTEENTH 

Comfort ? comfort scorn'd of devils ! this is truth 

the poet sings, 
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering 

happier things. 

Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy 

heart be put to proof, 
In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is 

on the roof. 

Locksley Hall 

MARCH NINETEENTH 

I remember one that perish'd : sweetly did she 

speak and move : 
Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was 
to love. 

[26] 



Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the 

love she bore ? 

No — she never loved me truly : love is love for 

evermore. 

Locksley Hall 

MARCH TWENTIETH 

What words are these have fall'n from me ? 

Can calm despair and wild unrest 

Be tenants of a single breast, 
Or sorrow such a changeling be? 

Or doth she only seem to take 

The touch of change in calm or storm ; 

But knows no more of transient form 
.In her deep self, than some dead lake 

That holds the shadow of a lark 

Hung in the shadow of a heaven ? 

In Memoriam 

MARCH TWENTY-FIRST 

'Twere better not to breathe or speak, 
Than cry for strength, remaining weak, 
And seem to find, but still to seek. 

Moreover, but to seem to find 

Asks what thou lackest, thought resign'd, 

A healthy frame, a quiet mind. 

The Tnuo Voices 

[»7] 



MARCH TWENTY-SECOND 

Deep on the convent-roof the snows 

Are sparkling to the moon : 
My breath to heaven like vapour goes: 

May my soul follow soon ! 
The shadows of the convent-towers 

Slant down the snowy sward, 
Still creeping with the creeping hours 

That lead me to my Lord : 
Make Thou my spirit pure and clear 

As are the frosty skies, 

Or this first snowdrop of the year 

That in my bosom lies. 

St. Agnes' E<ve 

MARCH TWENTY-THIRD 

I dream'd there would be Spring no more, 
That Nature's ancient power was lost : 
The streets were black with smoke and frost, 

They chatter'd trifles at the door. 

In Memoriam 

MARCH TWENTY-FOURTH 

Strong Son of God, immortal Love, 

Whom we, that have not seen thy face, 
By faith, and faith alone, embrace, 

Believing where we cannot prove ; 

Thine are these orbs of light and shade ; 
Thou madest Life in man and brute ; 



Thou madest Death ; and lo, thy foot 
Is on the skull which thou hast made. 

In Memoriam 

MARCH TWENTY-FIFTH 

Night slid down one long stream of sighing wind, 
And in her bosom bore the baby, Sleep. 

'the Gardener s Daughter 

MARCH TWENTY-SIXTH 

Shall we not look into the laws 

Of life and death, and things that seem, 

And things that be, and analyze 

Our double nature, and compare 

All creeds till we have found the one, 

If one there be ? 

Supposed Confessions 

MARCH TWENTY-SEVENTH 

It is man's privilege to doubt, 

If so be that from doubt at length, 

Truth may stand forth unmoved of change, 

An image with profulgent brows, 

And perfect limbs, as from the storm 

Of running fires and fluid range 

Of lawless airs, at last stood out 

This excellence and solid form 

Of constant beauty. 

Supposed Confessions 



[*9] 



MARCH TWENTY-EIGHTH 

He fought his doubts and gather'd strength, 
He would not make his judgement blind, 
He faced the spectres of the mind 

And laid them : thus he came at length 

To find a stronger faith his own ; 

And Power was with him in the night, 

Which makes the darkness and the light, 

And dwells not in the light alone. 

In Mcmoriam 



MARCH TWENTY-NINTH 

Altho' I be the basest of mankind, 

From scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin, 

Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce meet 

For troops of devils, mad with blasphemy, 

I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold 

Of saintdom, and to clamour, mourn and sob, 

Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer, 

Have mercy, Lord, and take away my sin. 

St. Simeon Stylites 

MARCH THIRTIETH 

And all is well, tho' faith and form 
Be sunder'd in the night of fear ; 
Well roars the storm to those that hear 

A deeper voice across the storm. 

In Memoriam 



[30] 



MARCH THIRTY-FIRST 

When rosy plumelets tuft the larch, 

And rarely pipes the mounted thrush; 
Or underneath the barren bush 
Flits by the sea-blue bird of March. 



In Memoriam 



[ 3' ] 



APRIL 

APRIL FIRST 

TAKE warning ! he that will not sing 
While yon sun prospers in the blue, 
Shall sing for want, ere leaves are new, 

Caught in the frozen palms of Spring. 

The Blackbird 

APRIL SECOND 

I am any man's suitor, 

If any will be my tutor: 
Some say this life is pleasant, 

Some think it speedeth fast: 
In time there is no present, 

In eternity no future, 

In eternity no past. 
We laugh, we cry, we are born, we die, 
Who will riddle me the how and the why? 

The "How" and the "Why" 

APRIL THIRD 

The fresh-flushing springtime calls 
To the flooding waters cool, 
Young fishes, on an April morn, 
Up and down a rapid river, 
Leap the little waterfalls 

That sing into the pebbled pool. Rosalind 

I 33 ] 



APRIL FOURTH 

So many worlds, so much to do, 

So little done, such things to be, 
How know I what had need of thee, 

For thou wert strong as thou wert true ? 

In Memoriam 



APRIL FIFTH 

Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn, 

Draw forth the cheerful day from night : 
O Father, touch the east, and light 

The light that shone when Hope was born. 

In Memoriam 



APRIL SIXTH 

Do we indeed desire the dead 

Should still be near us at our side ? 

Is there no baseness we would hide ? 
No inner vileness that we dread ? 

Shall he for whose applause I strove, 

I had such reverence for his blame, 

See with clear eye some hidden shame 

And I be lessen'd in his love ? 

In Memoriam 



[34] 



APRIL SEVENTH 

Morn in the white wake of the morning star 
Came furrowing all the orient into gold. 

The Princess 



APRIL EIGHTH 

Like souls that balance joy and pain, 
With tears and smiles from heaven again 
The maiden Spring upon the plain 
Came in a sunlit fall of rain. 

In crystal vapour everywhere 
Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between, 
And, far in forest-deeps unseen, 
The topmost elm-tree gather'd green 

From draughts of balmy air. 

Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere 



APRIL NINTH 

Now fades the last long streak of snow, 
Now burgeons every maze of quick 
About the flowering squares, and thick 

By ashen roots the violets blow. 

Now rings the woodland loud and long, 

The distance takes a lovelier hue, 

And drown'd in yonder living blue 

The lark becomes a sightless song. 

In Memoriam 

I 35] 



APRIL TENTH 

Earth is dry to the centre, 
But spring, a new comer, 
A spring rich and strange, 
Shall make the winds blow 
Round and round, 

Through and through, 
Here and there, 
Till the air 
And the ground 

Shall be filled with life anew. 

Nothing Will Die 

APRIL ELEVENTH 

O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this 

day is done 
The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond 

the sun — 
For ever and for ever with those just souls and 

true — 

And what is life, that we should moan ? why make 

we such ado? 

The May Queen 

APRIL TWELFTH 

Our voices took a higher range ; 

Once more we sang: "They do not die 
Nor lose their mortal sympathy, 

Nor change to us, although they change." 

In Memoriam 

[36] 






APRIL THIRTEENTH 

Courage, St. Simeon ! This dull chrysalis 

Cracks into shining wings, and hope ere death 

Spreads more and more and more, that God hath 

now 

Sponged and made blank of crimeful record all 

My mortal archives. 

St. Simeon Stylttes 

APRIL FOURTEENTH 

O well for him whose will is strong ! 

He suffers, but he will not suffer long ; 

He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong : 

For him nor moves the loud world's random mock, 

Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound, 

Who seems a promontory of rock, 

That, compass'd round with turbulent sound, 

In middle ocean meets the surging shock, 

Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crown'd. 

mil 

APRIL FIFTEENTH 

But ill for him who, bettering not with time, 

Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended Will, 

And ever weaker grows thro' a£ted crime, 

Or seeming-genial venial fault, 

Recurring and suggesting still ! 

He seems as one whose footsteps halt, 

Toiling in immeasurable sand, 



[37] 



And o'er a weary sultry land, 

Far beneath a blazing vault, 

Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill, 

The city sparkles like a grain of salt. 



mu 



APRIL SIXTEENTH 

A love still burning upward, giving light 
To read those laws; an accent very low 
In blandishment, but a most silver flow 
Of subtle-paced counsel in distress, 
Right to the heart and brain, tho' undescried, 

Winning its way with extreme gentleness 
Thro' all the outworks of suspicious pride ; 
A courage to endure and to obey; 
A hate of gossip parlance, and of sway, 
Crown'd Isabel, thro' all her placid life, 
The queen of marriage, a most perfect wife. 

Isabel 
APRIL SEVENTEENTH 

For woman is not undevelopt man, 

But diverse : could we make her as the man, 

Sweet love were slain : his dearest bond is this, 

Not like to like, but like in difference. 

The Princess 

APRIL EIGHTEENTH 

Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere 

Of common duties, decent not to fail 

In offices of tenderness, and pay 

Meet adoration to my household gods. 

Ulysses 

[38] 



APRIL NINETEENTH 

The wish, that of the living whole 

No life may fail beyond the grave; 
Derives it not from what we have 

The likest God within the soul? 

In Memoriam 

APRIL TWENTIETH 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

I know you proud to bear your name, 
Your pride is yet no mate for mine, 

Too proud to care from whence I came. 
Nor would I break for your sweet sake 

A heart that doats on truer charms. 
A simple maiden in her flower 

Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere 

APRIL TWENTY-FIRST 

So dark a mind within me dwells, 
And I make myself such evil cheer, 

That if I be dear to some one else, 

Then some one else may have much to fear, 

But if I be dear to some one else, 

Then I should be to myself more dear. 

Shall I not take care of all that I think, 

Yea ev'n of wretched meat and drink, 

If I be dear, 

If I be dear to some one else. 

Maud 

[39] 



APRIL TWENTY-SECOND 

"What is it thou knowest, sweet voice?" I cried. 
"A hidden hope," the voice replied: 

So heavenly-toned, that in that hour 
From out my sullen heart a power 
Broke, like the rainbow from the shower, 

To feel, altho' no tongue can prove, 
That every cloud, that spreads above 
And veileth love, itself is love. 



The Tnvo Voices 



APRIL TWENTY-THIRD 

Cry, faint not : either Truth is born 
Beyond the polar gleam forlorn, 

Or in the gateways of the morn. 

The Two Voices 

APRIL TWENTY-FOURTH 

Dip down upon the northern shore, 
O sweet new-year delaying long • 
Thou doest expectant nature wrong; 

Delaying long, delay no more. 

What stays thee from the clouded noons, 

Thy sweetness from its proper place? 

Can trouble live with April days, 

Or sadness in the summer moons? 

In Memoriam 



[40] 



APRIL TWENTY-FIFTH 

The path by which we twain did go, 

Which led by tracts that pleased us well, 
Thro' four sweet years arose and fell, 

From flower to flower, from snow to snow : 

And we with singing cheer'd the way, 

And crown'd with all the season lent, 

From April on to April went, 

And glad at heart from May to May. 

In Memoriam 

APRIL TWENTY-SIXTH 

Who can say 

Why To-day 
To-morrow will be yesterday ? 

Who can tell 

Why to smell 

The violet, recalls the dewy prime 

Of youth and buried time? 

The cause is nowhere found in rhyme. 

Song 

APRIL TWENTY-SEVENTH 

The smell of violets, hidden in the green, 

Pour'd back into my empty soul and frame 
The times when I remember to have been 
Joyful and free from blame. 

A Dream of Fair Women 

[+> ] 



APRIL TWENTY-EIGHTH 

Is it, then, regret for buried time 

That keenlier in sweet April wakes, 
And meets the year, and gives and takes 
The colours of the crescent prime ? 

Not all : the songs, the stirring air, 
The life re-orient out of dust, 
Cry thro' the sense to hearten trust 

In that which made the world so fair. 

In Memoriam 

APRIL TWENTY-NINTH 

In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the 
robin's breast; 

In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself an- 
other crest; 

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the bur- 

nish'd dove; 

In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns 

to thoughts of love. 

Locksley Hall 

APRIL THIRTIETH 

You must wake and call me early, call me early, 

mother dear ; 
To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad 

New-year ; 



[4* ] 



Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest 

merriest day ; 
For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to 

be Queen o' the May. 

The May Queen 



[43] 



MAY 



MAY FIRST 

THE night-winds come and go, mother, upon 
the meadow-grass, 
And the happy stars above them seem to brighten 

as they pass ; 
There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the 

live-long day, 
And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm 

to be Queen o' the May. 

"the May Queen 

MAY SECOND 

Fair year, with brows of royal love 

Thou comest, as a king. 

All in the bloomed May. 

Thy golden largess fling, 

And longer hear us sing; 

Though thou art fleet of wing, 

Yet stay. 

Alas ! that eyes so full of light 

Should be so wandering ! 

Song 



Us] 



MAY THIRD 

Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire, 

The little speedwell's darling blue, 

Deep tulips dash'd with fiery dew, 

Laburnums, dropping- wells of fire. 

In Memoriam 

MAY FOURTH 

The path of duty was the way to glory : 
He that walks it, only thirsting 
For the right, and learns to deaden 
Love of self, before his journey closes, 
He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting 
Into glossy purples, which outredden 
All voluptuous garden-roses. 

Ode on the Death of Wellington 
MAY FIFTH 

And I must work thro' months of toil, 

And years of cultivation, 
Upon my proper patch of soil 

To grow my own plantation. 
I'll take the showers as they fall, 

I will not vex my bosom : 
Enough if at the end of all 

A little garden blossom. 

Amphion 

MAY SIXTH 

I wonder'd, while I paced along : 

The woods were fill'd so full with song, 

There seem'd no room for sense of wrong. 

f 46 ] 



So variously seem'd all things wrought, 
I marvell'd how the mind was brought 
To anchor by one gloomy thought. 

The Two Voices 

MAY SEVENTH 

The varying year with blade and sheaf 
Clothes and reclothes the happy plains; 

Here rests the sap within the leaf, 
Here stays the blood along the veins. 

Faint shadows, vapours lightly curl'd, 

Faint murmurs from the meadows come, 

Like hints and echoes of the world 

To spirits folded in the womb. 

The Day-Dream 

MAY EIGHTH 

A million emeralds break from the ruby-budded 
lime 

In the little grove where I sit — ah, wherefore can- 
not I be 

Like things of the season gay, like the bountiful 
season bland, 

When the far-off sail is blown by the breeze of 
a softer clime, 

Half-lost in the liquid azure bloom of a crescent 
of sea, 

The silent sapphire-spangled marriage ring of the 

land? 

Maud 

[47 } 



MAY NINTH 

All the land in flowery squares, 
Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind, 
Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud 
Drew downward : but all else of Heaven was pure 
Up to the Sun, and May from verge to verge, 
And May with me from head to heel. 

%he Gardener s Daughter 

MAY TENTH 

Many a morning on the moorland did we hear 
the copses ring, 

And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the full- 
ness of the Spring. 

Locksley Hall 

MAY ELEVENTH 

Mine be the strength of spirit fierce and free, 
Like some broad river rushing down alone, 
With the selfsame impulse wherewith he was 

thrown 
From his loud fount upon the echoing lea: — 
Which with increasing might doth forward flee 
By town, and tower, and hill, and cape, and isle, 
And in the middle of the green salt sea 
Keeps his blue waters fresh for many a mile. 

Sonnet 



[48] 



MAY TWELFTH 

Mine be the Power which ever to its sway 
Will win the wise at once, and by degrees 
May into uncongenial spirits flow; 
Even as the great gulfstream of Florida 
Floats far away into the Northern seas 
The lavish growths of southern Mexico. 



Sonnet 



MAY THIRTEENTH 

Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing 

Under my eye ; 
Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing 

Over the sky. 
One after another the white clouds are fleeting; 
Every heart this May morning in joyance is beat- 
Full merrily; [ing 
Yet all things must die. 
The stream will cease to flow ; 
The wind will cease to blow; 
The clouds will cease to fleet ; 
The heart will cease to beat ; 

For all things must die. M ^ mn ^ 

MAY FOURTEENTH 

Oh teach me yet 
Somewhat before the heavy clod 
Weighs on me, and the busy fret 
Of that sharp-headed worm begins 
In the gross blackness underneath. 

r -i Supposed Confessions 



MAY FIFTEENTH 

My own dim life should teach me this, 
That life shall live for evermore, 
Else earth is darkness at the core, 

And dust and ashes all that is. Jn MgmrUm 

MAY SIXTEENTH 

Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace: 

Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul, 
While the stars burn, the moons increase, 

And the great ages onward roll. 

Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet. 

Nothing comes to thee new or strange, 
bleep full of rest from head to feet ; 

Lie still, dry dust, secure of change. 

To J. S. 

MAY SEVENTEENTH 

We are puppets, Man in his pride, and Beauty 
fair in her flower ; 

Do we move ourselves, or are moved by an un- 
seen hand at a game 

That pushes us off from the board, and others ever 
succeed ? 

Ah yet, we cannot be kind to each other here for 
an hour ; 

We whisper, and hint, and chuckle, and grin at a 
brother's shame ; 

However we brave it out, we men are a little breed. 

[ 50 ] Maud 



MAY EIGHTEENTH 

And the parson made it his text that week, and 
he said likewise, 

That a lie which is half a truth is ever the black- 
est of lies, 

That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought 
with outright, 

But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter 

to fight. 

The Grandmother's Apology 



MAY NINETEENTH 

Arise, my God, and strike, for we hold Thee just, 
Strike dead the whole weak race of venomous 

worms, 
That sting each other here in the dust; 

We are not worthy to live. 

Maud 



MAY TWENTIETH 

These are slanders : never yet 

Was noble man but made ignoble talk. 

Elaine 



MAY TWENTY-FIRST 

Thy leaf has perish'd in the green, 

And, while we breathe beneath the sun, 
The world which credits what is done 

Is cold to all that might have been. 
[ 5> ] 



So here shall silence guard thy fame ; 

But somewhere, out of human view, 
Whate'er thy hands are set to do 

Is wrought with tumult of acclaim. , y, 

MAY TWENTY-SECOND 

Ah ! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go ? 
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes? 
For now I see the true old times are dead, 
When every morning brought a noble chance, 
And every chance brought out a noble knight. 
Such times have been not since the light that led 
The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 
But now the whole round table is dissolved 
Which was an image of the mighty world ; 
And I, the last, go forth companionless, 
And the days darken round me, and the years, 
Among new men, strange faces, other minds. 

Morte D 'Arthur 

MAY TWENTY-THIRD 

How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use ! 
As tho' to breathe were life. 



Ulys 



MAY TWENTY-FOURTH 

Meet is it changes should control 

Our being, lest we rust in ease. 

We all are changed by still degrees, 
All but the basis of the soul. 



"Love Thou Thy Land'''' 

[ S^ ] 



MAY TWENTY-FIFTH 

Where she, who kept a tender Christian hope 
Haunting a holy text, and still to that 
Returning, as the bird returns, at night, 
"Let not the sun go down upon your wrath," 
Said, "Love, forgive him:" but he did not speak; 
And silenced by that silence lay the wife, 
Remembering our dear Lord who died for all, 
And musing on the little lives of men, 
And how they mar this little by their feuds. 

Sea Dreams 

MAY TWENTY-SIXTH 

The little hearts that know not how to forgive. 

Maud 

MAY TWENTY-SEVENTH 

For mockery is the fume of little hearts. 
And blessed be the King, who hath forgiven 
My wickedness to him, and left me hope 
That in mine own heart I can live down sin 
And be his mate hereafter in the heavens 
Before high God. 

Guinevere 

MAY TWENTY-EIGHTH 

Cry, faint not, climb : the summits slope 
Beyond the furthest flights of hope, 
Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope. 

The Tavo Voices 

[ 53] 



MAY TWENTY-NINTH 

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro', 
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades 

Forever and forever when I move. 

Ulysses 

MAY THIRTIETH 

"Dead ? he ? of heart-disease ? what heart had he 
To die of? dead!" 

u Ah, dearest, if there be 
A devil in man, there is an angel too, 
And if he did that wrong you charge him with, 
His angel broke his heart." 



Sea Dreams 



MAY THIRTY-FIRST 

Ay me ! I fear 
All may not doubt, but everywhere 
Some must clasp Idols. Yet, my God, 
Whom call I Idol? Let thy dove 
Shadow me over, and my sins 
Be unremembered, and thy love 



Enlighten me. 



Supposed Confessions 



[h] 



JUNE 



JUNE FIRST 

SWEET after showers, ambrosial air, 
That rollest from the gorgeous gloom 
Of evening over brake and bloom 
And meadow, slowly breathing bare 

The round of space, and rapt below 
Thro' all the dewy-tassell'd wood, 
And shadowing down the horned flood 

In ripples, fan my brows and blow 

The fever from my cheek, and sigh 

The full new life that feeds thy breath 
Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death, 

111 brethren, let the fancy fly 

From belt to belt of crimson seas 

On leagues of odour streaming far, 

To where in yonder orient star 

A hundred spirits whisper "Peace." 

In Memoriam 



[55] 



JUNE SECOND 

But anv man that walks the mead, 
In bud or blade, or bloom, may find, 

According as his humours lead, 
A meaning suited to his mind. 



The Day-Dre 



r< m 



JUXE THIRD 

Sometimes a little corner shines, 

As over rainy mist inclines 

A gleaming crag with belts of pines. 

The Two Voices 

JUNE FOURTH 

The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee, 

The snake slipt under a spray, 
The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak, 

And stared, with his foot on the prey, 
And the nightingale thought, "I have sung many 
songs, 
But never a one so gay, 
For he sings of what the world will be 
When the years have died away." 

The Poet's Song 

TUNE FIFTH 

Sometimes the linnet piped his song: 
Sometimes the throstle whistled strong : 
Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along, 
Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong: 
Bv grassv capes with fuller sound 

[5*1 



In curves the yellowing river ran, 
And drooping chestnut-buds bq 
To spread into the perfect fan, 
Above the teeming ground. 

Sir Lammceht amd £%*et i 

JUNE SIXTH 

As she fled fast thro' sun and shade, 
The happy winds upon her plav'd, 
Blowing the ringlet from the braid : 
She look'd so lovelv, as she sway'd 

The rein with daintv finger-tips, 
A man had given all other bliss. 
And all his worldly worth for : . 
Tc lole heart in one kiss 

Upon her perfect lips. 

Sir -. 

JUNE SEVENTH 

The slow sweet hours that bring us all things good. 
The slow sad hours that bring us all things ill, 
And all good things from evil, brought the n g 

1 - .' and Duty 

JUNE EIGHTH 

And Eustace turn'd, and smiling said to me, 
"Hear how the bushes echo ! by my life, 
These birds have jovful thoughts. Think you they 
sing 

[ 57] 



Like poets, from the vanity of song ? 

Or have they any sense of why they sing ? 

And would they praise the heavens for what they 

have?" 

The Gardener s Daughter 

JUNE NINTH 

And I made answer, "Were there nothing else 
For which to praise the heavens but only love, 
That only love were cause enough for praise." 

The Gardener s Daughter 

JUNE TENTH 

She sleeps : her breathings are not heard 

In palace chambers far apart. 
The fragrant tresses are not stirr'd 

That lie upon her charmed heart. 
She sleeps : on either hand upswells 

The gold-fringed pillow lightly prest : 
She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells 

A perfect form in perfeft rest. ^ Day . Dream 

JUNE ELEVENTH 

"O eyes long laid in happy sleep!" 

"O happy sleep, that lightly fled !" 
"O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!" 

"O love, thy kiss would wake the dead !" 
And o'er them many a flowing range 

Of vapour buoy'd the crescent-bark, 
And, rapt thro' many a rosy change, 

The twilight died into the dark. ^ Day . Dre a m 
[ 58] 



JUNE TWELFTH 

And on her lover's arm she leant, 

And round her waist she felt it fold, 
And far across the hills they went 

In that new world which is the old : 
Across the hills, and far away 

Beyond their utmost purple rim, 
And deep into the dying day 

The happy princess follow'd him. 

The Day-Dream 

JUNE THIRTEENTH 

I wonderM at the bounteous hours, 
The slow result of winter showers : 
You scarce could see the grass for flowers. 

the Tivo Voices 

JUNE FOURTEENTH 

O joy to him in this retreat, 

Immantled in ambrosial dark, 
To drink the cooler air, and mark 

The landscape winking through the heat. 

In Memor'tam 

JUNE FIFTEENTH 

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls, 

Come hither, the dances are done, 
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, 

Queen lily and rose in one ; 

Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, 

To the flowers, and be their sun. n . . 

9 Maud 

[ 59] 



JUNE SIXTEENTH 

There has fallen a splendid tear 

From the passion-flower at the gate. 
She is' coming, my dove, my dear; 

She is coming, my life, my fate ; 
The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near; 

And the white rose weeps, "She is late;" 
The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear;" 

And the lily whispers, "I wait." 



Maud 



JUNE SEVENTEENTH 

She is coming, my own, my sweet; 

Were it ever so airy a tread, 
My heart would hear her and beat, 

Were it earth in an earthy bed ; 
My dust would hear her and beat, 

Had I lain for a century dead ; 
Would start and tremble under her feet, 

And blossom in purple and red. 



Maud 



JUNE EIGHTEENTH 

Dear as remember'd kisses after death, 
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd 
On lips that are for others ; deep as love, 
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret ; 
O Death in Life, the days that are no more. 

The Princess 



[60] 



JUNE NINETEENTH 

I falter where I firmly trod, 

And falling with my weight of cares 
Upon the great world's altar-stairs* 

That slope thro' darkness up to God ; 

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, 

And gather dust and chaff, and call 

To what I feel is Lord of all, 

And faintly trust the larger hope. 

In Memorlam 

JUNE TWENTIETH 

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: 
The long day wanes : the slow moon climbs : the 

deep 
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 
'T is not too late to seek a newer world. 
Push off, and sitting well in order smite 
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds 
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 

Of all the western stars, until I die. 

Ulysses 

JUNE TWENTY-FIRST 

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, 
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. 

Ulysses 



[6, ] 



JUNE TWENTY-SECOND 

Oh yet we trust that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill, 
To pangs of nature, sins of will, 

Defedts of doubt, and taints of blood. 



In Memoriam 



JUNE TWENTY-THIRD 

That nothing walks with aimless feet ; 
That not one life shall be destroy'd, 
Or cast as rubbish to the void, 

When God hath made the pile complete; 

That not a worm is cloven in vain ; 
That not a moth with vain desire 
Is shrivellM in a fruitless fire, 

Or but subserves another's gain. 



In Memoriam 



JUNE TWENTY-FOURTH 

Like simple noble natures, credulous 

Of what they long for, good in friend or foe, 

There most in those who most have done them ill. 



Enid 



JUNE TWENTY-FIFTH 

Whither away, whither away, whither away ? fly 

no more. 
Whither away from the high green field, and the 
happy blossoming shore? 

[62] 



Day and night to the billow the fountain calls ; 

Down shower the gambolling waterfalls 

From wandering over the lea : 

Out of the live-green heart of the dells 

They freshen the silvery-crimson shells, 

And thick with white bells the clover-hill swells 

High over the full-toned sea. 

The Sea Fairies 

JUNE TWENTY-SIXTH 

Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat, 

Nor any cloud would cross the vault, 
But day increased from heat to heat, 

On stony drought and steaming salt; 
Till now at noon she slept again, 

And seem'd knee-deep in mountain grass, 
i And heard her native breezes pass, 
And runlets babbling down the glen. 

She breathed in sleep a lower moan, 

And murmuring, as at night and morn, 
She thought, "My spirit is here alone, 
Walks forgotten, and is forlorn." 

Mariana in the South 

JUNE TWENTY-SEVENTH 

The Sun will run his orbit, and the Moon 
Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will bring 
The drooping flower of knowledge changed to fruit 
Of wisdom. Wait : my faith is large in Time, 
And that which shapes it to some perfect end. 

Lo<v e and Duty 

[63] 



JUNE TWENTY-EIGHTH 
Flower in the crannied wall, 
I pluck you out of the crannies, 
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
Little flower — but if I could understand 
What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
I should know what God and man is. 

" Flower in the Crannied Wall " 

JUNE TWENTY-NINTH 

Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite 
Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love. 
News from the humming city comes to it 
In sound of funeral or of marriage bells; 
And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear 
The windy clanging of the minster clock ; 
Although between it and the garden lies 
A league of grass, wash'd by a slow broad stream, 
That, stirr'd with languid pulses of the oar, 
Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on, 
Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge 
Crown'd with the minster-towers. 

The fields between 
Are dewy-fresh, browsed by deep-udder'd kine, 
And all about the large lime feathers low, 
The lime a summer home of murmurous wings. 

The Gardener's Daughter 



[64] 



JUNE THIRTIETH 

Airy, fairy Lilian, 

Flitting, fairy Lilian, 
When I ask her if she love me, 
Claps her tiny hands above me, 

Laughing all she can ; 
She'll not tell me if she love me, 

Cruel little Lilian. 

Lilian 



[65] 



JULY 

JULY FIRST 

AND brushing ankle-deep in flowers, 
„ We heard behind the woodbine veil 
The milk that bubbled in the pail, 

And buzzings of the honeyed hours. 

In Memoriam 

JULY SECOND 

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I 

linger on the shore, 
And the individual withers, and the world is more 

and more. 

Locksley Hall 

JULY THIRD 

A wind to puff your idol-fires, 

And heap their ashes on the head ; 
To shame the boast so often made, 

That we are wiser than our sires. 

"Love Thou Thy Land" 

JULY FOURTH 

O yet, if Nature's evil star 

Drive men in manhood, as in youth, 
To follow flying steps of Truth 

Across the brazen bridge of war — 

[6 7 ] 



If New and Old, disastrous feud, 
Must ever shock, like armed foes, 
And this be true, till Time shall close, 

That Principles are rain'd in blood ; 

Not yet the wise of heart would cease 
To hold his hope thro' shame and guilt. 
But with his hand against the hilt, 

Would pace the troubled land, like Peace. 

"Love Thou Thy Land" 

JULY FIFTH 

Not less, tho* dogs of Faction bay, 

Would serve his kind in deed and word, 
Certain, if knowledge bring the sword, 
That knowledge takes the sword away. 

"Love Thou Thy Land" 

JULY SIXTH 

When will the hundred summers die, 

And thought and time be born again, 
And newer knowledge, drawing nigh, 

Bring truth that sways the soul of men ? 
Here all things in their place remain, 

As all were order'd, ages since. 
Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain, 

And bring the fated fairy Prince. 

The Day-Dream 



[68] 



JULY SEVENTH 

To follow knowledge, like a sinking star, 
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. 

Ulysses 

JULY EIGHTH 

Life piled on life 

Were all too little, and of one to me 
Little remains : but every hour is saved 
From that eternal silence, something more, 
A bringer of new things. „, 

JULY NINTH 

At eve a dry cicala sung, 

There came a sound as of the sea ; 
Backward the lattice-blind she flung, 

And lean'd upon the balcony. 
There all in spaces rosy-bright 

Large Hesper glitter'd on her tears, 
And deepening thro' the silent spheres, 
Heaven over Heaven rose the night. 

And weeping then she made her moan, 
"The night comes on that knows not morn, 
When I shall cease to be all alone, 
To live forgotten, and love forlorn." 

Mariana in the South 

JULY TENTH 

Whatever crazy sorrow saith, 

No life that breathes with human breath 

Has ever truly long'd for death. 

[69] 



'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, 
Oh life, not death, for which we pant; 

More life, and fuller, that I want. m <r 

7 The Two Voices 

JULY ELEVENTH 

Love trebled life within me, and with each 
The year increased. 

The daughters of the year, 
One after one, thro' that still garden pass'd : 
Each garlanded with her peculiar flower 
Danced into light, and died into the shade. 

The Gardener s Daughter 

JULY TWELFTH 

Ah, one rose, 
One rose, but one, by those fair fingers cull'd, 
Were worth a hundred kisses press'd on lips 

Less exquisite than thine. „., „ . , n . 

* The Gardener s Daughter 

JULY THIRTEENTH 

A crowd of hopes, 
That sought to sow themselves like winged seeds, 
Born out of everything I heard and saw, 
Flutter'd about my senses and my soul ; 
And vague desires, like fitful blasts of balm 
To one that travels quickly, made the air 
Of Life delicious, and all kinds of thought, 
That verged upon them, sweeter than the dream 
Dream'd by a happy man, when the dark East, 
Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn. 

The Gardener s Daughter 

[70] 



JULY FOURTEENTH 

O Blackbird ! sing me something well : 

While all the neighbours shoot thee round, 
I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground, 

Where thou may'st warble, eat and dwell. 

The espaliers and the standards all 

Are thine ; the range of lawn and park : 

The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark, 

All thine, against the garden wall. 

The Blackbird 



JULY FIFTEENTH 

He had never kindly heart, 
Nor ever cared to better his own kind, 
Who first wrote satire, with no pity in it. 

Sea Dreams 



JULY SIXTEENTH 

The tiny-trumpeting gnat can break our dream 
When sweetest ; and the vermin voices here 
May buzz so loud — we scorn them, but they sting. 

Elaine 

JULY SEVENTEENTH 

I would dwell with thee, 

Merry grasshopper, 
Thou art so glad and free, 

And as light as air ; 

[71 ] 



Thou hast no sorrow or tears, 

Thou hast no compt of years, 

No withered immortality, 

But a short youth sunny and free. ^ , r , 

JULY EIGHTEENTH 

For every worm beneath the moon 
Draws different threads, and late and soon 

Spins, toiling out his own cocoon. „>, -> 

r ' ° The Tivo Voices 

JULY NINETEENTH 

But were I loved, as I desire to be, 
What is there in the great sphere of the earth, 
And range of evil between death and birth, 
That I should fear, — if I were loved by thee? 

Sonnets 

JULY TWENTIETH 

All the inner, all the outer world of pain 

Clear Love would pierce and cleave, if thou wert 

mine, 
As I have heard that, somewhere in the main, 
Fresh-water-springs come up through bitter brine. 

Sonnets 

JULY TWENTY-FIRST 

The violet varies from the lily as far 
As oak from elm : one loves the soldier, one 
The silken priest of peace, one this, one that, 
And some unworthily. r)u princess 

[7*] 



JULY TWENTY-SECOND 

Have I not found a happy earth? 

I least should breathe a thought of pain. 
Would God renew me from my birth 

I'd almost live my life again. 
So sweet it seems with thee to walk, 

And once again to woo thee mine — 
It seems in after-dinner talk 

Across the walnuts and the wine. 

The Miller s Daughter 

JULY TWENTY-THIRD 

He makes no friend who never made a foe. 
But now it is my glory to have loved 
One peerless, without stain. 



Elaii 



JULY TWENTY-FOURTH 

The quick lark's closest-carolled strains, 
The shadow rushing up the sea, 
The lightning-flash atween the rains, 
The sunlight driving down the lea, 
The leaping stream, the very wind, 
That will not stay, upon his way, 
To stoop the cowslip to the plains, 
Is not so clear and bold and free 
As you, my falcon Rosalind. 



[73] 



Rosalind 



JULY TWENTY-FIFTH 

Live — yet live — 

Shall sharpest pathos blight us, knowing all 

Life needs for life is possible to will — 

Live happy ; tend thy flowers j be tended by 

My blessing ! Should my Shadow cross thy thoughts 

Too sadly for their peace, remand it thou 

For calmer hours to Memory's darkest hold, 

If not to be forgotten — not at once — 

Not all forgotten. 

Love and Duty 



JULY TWENTY-SIXTH 

I know that this was Life, — the track 
Whereon with equal feet we fared ; 
And then, as now, the day prepared 

The daily burden for the back. 

But this it was that made me move 
As light as carrier-birds in air ; 
I loved the weight I had to bear, 

Because it needed help of Love. 



In Memoriam 



JULY TWENTY-SEVENTH 

Comfort her, comfort her, all things good, 
While I am over the sea ! 
Let me and my passionate love go by, 
But speak to her all things holy and high, 
Whatever happen to me ! 
[74] 



Me and my harmful love go by ; 

But come to her waking, find her asleep, 

Powers of the height, Powers of the deep, 

And comfort her tho' I die. 

Maud 

JULY TWENTY-EIGHTH 

My mother pitying made a thousand prayers ; 
My mother was as mild as any saint, 
Half-canonized by all that look'd on her, 
So gracious was her ta£t and tenderness. 

The Princess 

JULY TWENTY-NINTH 

Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers, 

Whose loves in higher love endure; 

What souls possess themselves so pure, 

Or is there blessedness like theirs? 

In Memoriam 

JULY THIRTIETH 

Not learned, save in gracious household ways, 

Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants, 

No Angel, but a dearer being, all dipt 

In Angel instincts, breathing Paradise, 

Interpreter between the Gods and men, 

Who look'd all native to her place, and yet 

On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere 

Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce 

Sway'd to her from their orbits as they moved, 

And girdled her with music. 

The Princess 

[75 ] 



JULY THIRTY-FIRST 

Happy he 

With such a mother ! faith in womankind 

Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high 

Comes easy to him, and tho' he trip and fall 

He shall not blind his soul with clay. 

The Princess 



[76] 



aC2 

AUGUST 



AUGUST FIRST 

BE mine a philosopher's life in the quiet wood- 
land ways, 

Where if I cannot be gay let a passionless peace 
be my lot, 

Far-off from the clamour of liars belied in the hub- 
bub of lies ; 

From the long-neck'd geese of the world that are 
ever hissing dispraise 

Because their natures are little, and, whether he 
heed it or not, 

Where each man walks with his head in a cloud 

of poisonous flies. 

Maud 



AUGUST SECOND 

Is it well to wish thee happy? — having known 

me — to decline 
On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart 

than mine ! 

Yet it shall be : thou shalt lower to his level day 
by day, 

What is fine within thee growing coarse to sym- 
pathise with clay. 

Locksley Hall 

[77] 



AUGUST THIRD 

As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated 

with a clown, 
And the grossness of his nature will have weight 

to drag thee down. 

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have 

spent its novel force, 

Something better than his dog, a little dearer than 

his horse. 

Locksley Hall 

AUGUST FOURTH 

Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a 

moulder'd string? 

I am shamed thro' all my nature to have loved so 

slight a thing. 

Locksley Hall 

AUGUST FIFTH 

Something it is which thou hast lost, 

Some pleasure from thine early years. 

Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears, 

That grief hath shaken into frost ! 

In Memoriam 

AUGUST SIXTH 

There was no motion in the dumb dead air, 
Not any song of bird or sound of rill; 

Gross darkness of the inner sepulchre 
Is not so deadly still 

[78] 



As that wide forest. Growths of jasmine turn'd 

Their humid arms festooning tree to tree, 

And at the root thro' lush green grasses burn'd 

The red anemone. 

A Dream of Fair Women 

AUGUST SEVENTH 

On either side the river lie 

Long fields of barley and of rye, 

That clothe the wold and meet the sky; 

And thro' the field the road runs by 

To many-tower'd Camelot; 

And up and down the people go, 

Gazing where the lilies blow 

Round an island there below, 

The island of Shalott. 

The Lady of Shalott 

AUGUST EIGHTH 

Willows whiten, aspens quiver, 

Little breezes dusk and shiver 

Thro' the wave that runs for ever 

By the island in the river 

Flowing down to Camelot. 

Four gray walls, and four gray towers, 

Overlook a space of flowers, 

And the silent isle imbowers 

The Lady of Shalott. 

The Lady of Shalott 



[79] 



AUGUST NINTH 

I muse on joy that will not cease, 

Pure spaces clothed in living beams, 
Pure lilies of eternal peace, 

Whose odours haunt my dreams. 



AUGUST TENTH 

'Tis a morning pure and sweet, 
And the light and shadow fleet; 
She is walking in the meadow, 
And the woodland echo rings; 
In a moment we shall meet; 
She is singing in the meadow, 
And the rivulet at her feet 
Ripples on in light and shadow 
To the ballad that she sings. 



Sir Galahad 



Maud 



AUGUST ELEVENTH 
Silence, beautiful voice ! 
Be still, for you only trouble the mind 
With a joy in which I cannot rejoice, 
A glory I shall not find. 
Still ! I will hear you no more, 
For your sweetness hardly leaves me a choice 
But to move to the meadow and fall before 
Her feet on the meadow grass, and adore, 
Not her, who is neither courtly nor kind, 

Not her, not her, but a voice. 

Maud 

[So] 



AUGUST TWELFTH 

But am I not the nobler thro' thy love ? 

O three times less unworthy ! likewise thou 

Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy years. 

Love and Duty 

AUGUST THIRTEENTH 

And never yet, since high in Paradise 
O'er the four rivers the first roses blew, 
Came purer pleasure unto mortal kind 
Than lived thro' her, who in that perilous hour 
Put hand to hand beneath her husband's heart, 
And felt him hers again : she did not weep, 
But o'er her meek eyes came a happy mist 
Like that which kept the heart of Eden green 

Before the useful trouble of the rain. 

Enid 

AUGUST FOURTEENTH 

But now by this my love has closed her sight 
And given false death her hand, and stol'n away 
To dreamful wastes where footless fancies dwell 
Among the fragments of the golden day. 
May nothing there her maiden grace affright! 
Dear heart, I feel with thee the drowsy spell. 

Maud 

AUGUST FIFTEENTH 

And all that night I heard the watchman peal 
The sliding season : all that night I heard 
The heavy clocks knolling the drowsy hours. 
[81 ] 



The drowsy hours, dispensers of all good, 
O'er the mute city stole with folded wings, 
Distilling odours on me as they went 
To greet their fairer sisters of the East. 

The Gardener s Daughter 

AUGUST SIXTEENTH 

It is not true that second thoughts are best, 

But first, and third, which are a riper first ; 

Too ripe, too late ! they come too late for use. 

Sea Dreams 
AUGUST SEVENTEENTH 

But the broad light glares and beats, 

And the shadow flits and fleets 

And will not let me be; 

And I loathe the squares and streets, 

And the faces that one meets, 

Hearts with no love for me : 

Always I long to creep 

Into some still cavern deep, 

There to weep, and weep, and weep 

My whole soul out to thee. M . 

AUGUST EIGHTEENTH 

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds 
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square ; 
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 

The Princess 

[82] 



AUGUST NINETEENTH 

The dim red morn had died, her journey done, 
And with dead lips smiled at the twilight 
plain, 
Half-fairn across the threshold of the sun, 

Never to rise again. 

A Dream of Fair Women 

AUGUST TWENTIETH 

And from within me a clear under-tone 

Thrill'd thro' mine ears in that unblissful 
clime, 
"Pass freely thro': the wood is all thine own, 

Until the end of time." 

A Dream of Fair Women 

AUGUST TWENTY-FIRST 
"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land, 
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon." 
In the afternoon they came unto a land, 
In which it seemed always afternoon. 
All round the coast the languid air did swoon, 
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream. 
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon ; 
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream 
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem. 

The Lotos-Eaters 



[83 



AUGUST TWENTY-SECOND 

How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing 

lowly) 
With half-dropt eyelids still, 
Beneath a heaven dark and holy, 
To watch the long bright river drawing slowly 
His waters from the purple hill — 
To hear the dewy echoes calling 
From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine — 
To watch the emerald-colour'd water falling 
Thro* many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine ! 
Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine, 
Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath 

the pine. 

The Lotos-Eaters 

AUGUST TWENTY-THIRD 

To hear each other's whisperM speech ; 

Eating the Lotos day by day, 

To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, 

And tender curving lines of creamy spray ; 

To lend our hearts and spirits wholly 

To the influence of mild-minded melancholy; 

To muse and brood and live again in memory, 

With those old faces of our infancy 

HeapM over with a mound of grass, 

Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of 

brass ! 

the Lotos-Eaters 



[84] 



AUGUST TWENTY-FOURTH 
Our father's dust is left alone 

And silent under other snows : 

There in due time the woodbine blows, 

The violet comes, but we are gone. 

In Memoriam 

AUGUST TWENTY-FIFTH 

We ceased : a gentler feeling crept 

Upon us : surely rest is meet : 

"They rest," we said, "their sleep is sweet," 

And silence followed, and we wept. 

In Memoriam 

AUGUST TWENTY-SIXTH 
Break, break, break, 

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea ! 
And I would that my tongue could utter 

The thoughts that arise in me. 

O well for the fisherman's boy, 

That he shouts with his sister at play ! 

O well for the sailor lad, 

That he sings in his boat on the bay ! 

"Break, break, break" 

AUGUST TWENTY-SEVENTH 

And the stately ships go on 

To their haven under the hill ; 
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, 

And the sound of a voice that is still ! 

[85] 



_ 



Break, break, break, 

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea ! 
But the tender grace of a day that is dead 

Will never come back to me. 

"Break, break, break" 

AUGUST TWENTY-EIGHTH 

Why the life goes when the blood is spilt ? 

What the life is? where the soul may lie? 
Why a church is with a steeple built; 
And a house with a chimney pot ? 
Who will riddle me the how and the what? 
Who will riddle me the what and the why ? 

The "How" and the "Why" 

AUGUST TWENTY-NINTH 

That Beauty, Good, and Knowledge, are three 

sisters 
That doat upon each other, friends to man, 
Living together under the same roof, 
And never can be sunder'd without tears. 
And he that shuts Love out, in turn shall be 
Shut out from Love, and on her threshold lie 
Howling in outer darkness. Not for this 
Was common clay ta'en from the common earth, 
Moulded by God, and temper'd with the tears 
Of angels to the perfect shape of man. 

To (The Palace of Art) 



[86] 



AUGUST THIRTIETH 

He has a solid base of temperament : 
But as the waterlily starts and slides 
Upon the level in little puffs of wind, 
Tho' anchor'd to the bottom, such is he. 

The Princess 

AUGUST THIRTY-FIRST 

Sunset and evening star, 

And one clear call for me ! 

And may there be no moaning of the bar, 

When I put out to sea, 

But such a tide as moving seems asleep, 

Too full for sound and foam, 

When that which drew from out the boundless 

deep 
Turns again home. 

Twilight and evening bell, 

And after that the dark ! 

And may there be no sadness of farewell, 

When I embark ; 

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place 

The flood may bear me far, 

I hope to see my Pilot face to face 

When I have crost the bar. 

Crossing the Ear 



[ 8/ ] 



SEPTEMBER 

SEPTEMBER FIRST 

O SOUND to rout the brood of cares, 
The sweep of scythe in morning dew, 
The gust that round the garden flew, 
And tumbled half the mellowing pears ! 

In Memoriam 

SEPTEMBER SECOND 

The charmed sunset linger'd low adown 
In the red West: thro' mountain clefts the dale 
. Was seen far inland, and the yellow down 
Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale 
And meadow, set with slender galingale ; 
A land where all things always seem'd the same ! 
And round about the keel with faces pale, 
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame, 
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came. 

The Lotos- Eaters 

SEPTEMBER THIRD 

There is sweet music here that softer falls 
Than petals from blown roses on the grass, 
Or night-dews on still waters between walls 
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass; 

[89] 



Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, 
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes; 
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the bliss- 
ful skies. 

The Lotos-Eaters 

SEPTEMBER FOURTH 

Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness, 

And utterly consumed with sharp distress, 

While all things else have rest from weariness? 

All things have rest : why should we toil alone, 

We only toil, who are the first of things, 

And make perpetual moan, 

Still from one sorrow to another thrown : 

Nor ever fold our wings, 

And cease from wanderings, 

Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm ; 

Nor harken what the inner spirit sings, 

"There is no joy but calm!" 

Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of 

things ? 

The Lotos-Eaters 



SEPTEMBER FIFTH 

Death is the end of life ; ah, why 

Should life all labour be? 

The Lotos-Eaters 



[9°] 



SEPTEMBER SIXTH 

O ye, the wise who think, the wise who reign, 
From growing commerce loose her latest chain, 
And let the fair white-wing'd peacemaker fly 
To happy havens under all the sky, 
And mix the seasons and the golden hours; 
Till each man find his own in all men's good, 
And all men work in noble brotherhood — 
Breaking their mailed fleets and armed towers, 
And ruling by obeying Nature's powers, 
And gathering all the fruits of earth, and crown'd 
with all her flowers. 
Ode Sung at the Opening of the International Exhibition, 1862 

SEPTEMBER SEVENTH 

And oft I talk'd with Dubric, the high saint, 
Who, with mild heat of holy oratory, 
Subdued me somewhat to that gentleness, 
Which, when it weds with manhood, makes a 

man. 

Enid 

SEPTEMBER EIGHTH 

At last I heard a voice upon the slope 
Cry to the summit, "Is there any hope?" 
To which an answer peal'd from that high land, 
But in a tongue no man could understand; 
And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn 
God made Himself an awful rose of dawn. 

The Vision of Sin 

[9'] 



SEPTEMBER NINTH 

Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, 
At last he beat his music out. 
There lives more faith in honest doubt, 

Believe me, than in half the creeds. 

In Memoriam 

SEPTEMBER TENTH 

As nine months go to the shaping an infant ripe 
for his birth, 

So many a million of ages have gone to the mak- 
ing of man : 

He now is first, but is he the last ? is he not too 

base ? 

Maud 

SEPTEMBER ELEVENTH 

O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, 
Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, 
And tell her, tell her what I tell to thee. 

tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, 
That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, 
And dark and true and tender is the North. 

The Princess 

SEPTEMBER TWELFTH 

1 would have hid her needle in my heart, 
To save her little finger from a scratch 

No deeper than the skin : my ears could hear 
Her lightest breath : her least remark was worth 
[9*] 



The experience of the wise. I went and came ; 
Her voice fled always thro' the summer land ; 
I spoke her name alone. Thrice-happy days ! 
The flower of each, those moments when we met, 
The crown of all, we met to part no more. 

Edwin Morris, or The Lake 

SEPTEMBER THIRTEENTH 
Kate hath a spirit ever strung 

Like a new bow, and bright and sharp 
As edges of the scymetar. 
Whence shall she take a fitting mate? 

For Kate no common love will feel ; 
My woman-soldier, gallant Kate, 
As pure and true as blades of steel. 



Kate 



SEPTEMBER FOURTEENTH 

I would I were an armed knight, 
Far famed for well-won enterprise, 

And wearing on my swarthy brows 
The garland of new-wreathed emprise; 
For in a moment I would pierce 
The blackest files of clanging fight, 
And strongly strike to left and right, 
In dreaming of my lady's eyes. 

SEPTEMBER FIFTEENTH 

Sweet is true love tho' given in vain, in vain; 
And sweet is death who puts an end to pain : 
I know not which is sweeter, no, not I. 
[93] 



Kate 



Love, art thou sweet ? then bitter death must be : 
Love, thou art bitter ; sweet is death to me. 

Love, if death be sweeter, let me die. 

Elaine 

SEPTEMBER SIXTEENTH 

Ah, what shall I be at fifty- 
Should Nature keep me alive, 
If I find the world so bitter 
When I am but twenty-five ? 
Yet, if she were not a cheat, 
If Maud were all that she seem'd, 
And her smile were all that I dream'd, 
Then the world were not so bitter 

But a smile could make it sweet. 

Maud 

SEPTEMBER SEVENTEENTH 

The man of science himself is fonder of glory, and 

vain, 
An eye well-pradtised in nature, a spirit bounded 

and poor; 
The passionate heart of the poet is whirl'd into 

folly and vice. 

1 would not marvel at either, but keep a temper- 

ate brain ; 
For not to desire or admire, if a man could learn 

it, were more 

Than to walk all day like the sultan of old in a 

garden of spice. 

Maud 

[9+] 



SEPTEMBER EIGHTEENTH 

There is confusion worse than death, 
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain, 
Long labour unto aged breath, 
Sore task to hearts worn out with many wars 
And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot- 
stars. 

The Lotos-Eaters 

SEPTEMBER NINETEENTH 

Oh ! sure it is a special care 
Of God, to fortify from doubt, 
To arm in proof, and guard about 
With triple-mailed trust, and clear 
Delight, the infant's dawning year. 

Supposed Confessions 

SEPTEMBER TWENTIETH 

I loved the brimming wave that swam 

Thro' quiet meadows round the mill, 
The sleepy pool above the dam, 

The pool beneath it never still, 
The meal-sacks on the whiten'd floor, 

The dark round of the dripping wheel, 
The very air about the door 

Made misty with the floating meal. 

The Miller s Daughter 



[95] 



SEPTEMBER TWENTY-FIRST 

The world is somewhat ; it goes on somehow ; 
But what is the meaning of then and now? 

I feel there is something ; but how and what ? 
I know there is somewhat ; but what and why ? 
I cannot tell if that somewhat be I. 

The " How" and the " Why " 

SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SECOND 

Kate saith "the world is void of might." 

Kate saith "the men are gilded flies." 

Kate snaps her fingers at my vows ; 

Kate will not hear of lover's sighs. 

Kate 

SEPTEMBER TWENTY-THIRD 

As thro' the land at eve we went, 

And pluck'd the ripen'd ears, 
We fell out, my wife and I, 
O we fell out I know not why, 

And kiss'd again with tears. 

For when we came where lies the child 

We lost in other years, 

There above the little grave, 

O there above the little grave, 

We kiss'd again with tears. 

The Princess 



[96] 



SEPTEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH 
More soluble is this knot 
By gentleness than war. 



The Princess 



SEPTEMBER TWENTY-FIFTH 

So much the gathering darkness charm'd : we sat 
But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie, 
Perchance upon the future man : the walls 
Blacken'd about us, bats wheel'd,and owls whoop'd, 
And gradually the powers of the night, 
That range above the region of the wind, 
Deepening the courts of twilight broke them up 
Thro* all the silent spaces of the worlds, 
Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Heavens. 

The Princess 

SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH 

Lo ! in the middle of the wood, 
The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud 
With winds upon the branch, and there 
Grows green and broad, and takes no care, 
Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon 
Nightly dew-fed ; and turning yellow 

Falls, and floats adown the air. 

The Lotos-Eaters 



[97] 



SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH 

Lo ! sweeten'd with the summer light, 

The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, 

Drops in a silent autumn night. 

All its allotted length of days, 

The flower ripens in its place, 

Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, 

Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil. 

The Lotos-Eaters 

SEPTEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH 

All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave 
In silence ; ripen, fall and cease : 
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dream- 
ful ease. 

The Lotos-Eaters 

SEPTEMBER TWENTY-NINTH 

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea, 

Thy tribute wave deliver : 
No more by thee my steps shall be, 

For ever and for ever. 

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea, 

A rivulet then a river: 
No where by thee my steps shall be, 

For ever and for ever. 

A Fareivell 



[98] 



SEPTEMBER THIRTIETH 

But here will sigh thine alder tree, 

And here thine aspen shiver ; 
And here by thee will hum the bee, 

For ever and for ever. 

A thousand suns will stream on thee, 

A thousand moons will quiver ; 

But not by thee my steps shall be, 

For ever and for ever. 

A Fareuuell 

Lore 



[99] 



OCTOBER 



OCTOBER FIRST 

THOUGH Night hath climbed her peak of 
highest noon, 
And bitter blasts the screaming autumn whirl, 
All night through archways of the bridged pearl, 
And portals of pure silver walks the moon. 
Walk on, my soul, nor crouch to agony, 
Turn cloud to light, and bitterness to joy, 
And dross to gold with glorious alchemy, 
Basing thy throne above the world's annoy. 

Sonnet 

OCTOBER SECOND 

Beat, happy stars, timing with things below, 
Beat with my heart more blest than heart can tell, 
Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe 
That seems to draw — but it shall not be so : 

Let all be well, be well. 

Maud 



[ "oi ] 



OCTOBER THIRD 

let the solid ground 
Not fail beneath my feet 

Before my life has found 

What some have found so sweet; 
Then let come what come may, 
What matter if I go mad, 

1 shall have had my day. 



Maud 



OCTOBER FOURTH 

Not die; but live a life of truest breath, 
And teach true life to fight with mortal wrongs. 
O, why should Love, like men in drinking-songs, 
Spice his fair banquet with the dust of death ? 
Make answer, Maud my bliss, 
Maud made my Maud by that long lover's kiss, 
Life of my life, wilt thou not answer this? 
"The dusky strand of Death inwoven here 
With dear Love's tie, makes Love himself more 
dear." 

Maud 

OCTOBER FIFTH 

This truth came borne with bier and pall, 

I felt it, when I sorrow'd most, 

'Tis better to have loved and lost, 

Than never to have loved at all. 

In Memoriam 



[ io» ] 



OCTOBER SIXTH 

The bulrush nods unto its brother, 
The wheatears whisper to each other : 
What is it they say ? What do they there ? 
Why two and two make four ? Why round is not 

square ? 
Why the rock stands still, and the light clouds fly ? 
Why the heavy oak groans, and the white willows 

sigh ? 
Why deep is not high, and high is not deep ? 
Whether we wake, or whether we sleep? 
Whether we sleep, or whether we die ? 
How you are you ? Why I am I ? 
Who will riddle me the how and the why? 

The " How " and the " Why" 

OCTOBER SEVENTH 

A spirit haunts the year's last hours 

Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers : 

To himself he talks ; 

For at eventide, listening earnestly, 

At his work you may hear him sob and sigh 

In the walks; 

Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks 

Of the mouldering flowers : 

Heavily hangs the broad sunflower 

Over its grave i' the earth so chilly ; 

Heavily hangs the hollyhock, 

Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. 

Song 

[ 103] 



OCTOBER EIGHTH 

The air is damp, and hush'd, and close, 

As a sick man's room when he taketh repose 

An hour before death; 

My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves 

At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves, 

And the breath 

Of the fading edges of box beneath, 

And the year's last rose. 

Heavily hangs the broad sunflower 

Over its grave f the earth so chilly ; 

Heavily hangs the hollyhock, 

Heavily hangs the. tiger-lily. 

Song 

OCTOBER NINTH 

Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, 
And in a little while our lips are dumb. 
Let us alone. What is it that will last ? 

The Lotos-Eaters 

OCTOBER TENTH 

See what a lovely shell, 

Small and pure as a pearl, 

Lying close to my foot, 

Frail, but a work divine, 

Made so fairily well 

With delicate spire and whorl, 

How exquisitely minute, 

A miracle of design ! 

Maud 

[ I0 4 ] 



OCTOBER ELEVENTH 

What is it ? a learned man 
Could give it a clumsy name. 
Let him name it who can, 
The beauty would be the same. 



OCTOBER TWELFTH 

The tiny cell is forlorn, 
Void of the little living will 
That made it stir on the shore. 
Did he stand at the diamond door 
Of his house in a rainbow frill ? 
Did he push, when he was uncurl'd, 
A golden foot or a fairy horn 
Thro' his dim water-world ? 



OCTOBER THIRTEENTH 

Slight, to be crush'd with a tap 
Of my finger-nail on the sand, 
Small, but a work divine, 
Frail, but of force to withstand 
Year upon year, the shock 
Of cataract seas that snap 
The three-decker's oaken spine 
Athwart the ledges of rock, 
Here on the Breton strand ! 



Maud 



Maud 



Maud 



[ »o 5 ] 



OCTOBER FOURTEENTH 

Calm is the morn without a sound, 

Calm as to suit a calmer grief, 

And only thro' the faded leaf 
The chestnut pattering to the ground : 

Calm and deep peace on this high wold, 
And on these dews that drench the furze, 
And all the silvery gossamers 

That twinkle into green and gold. 



In Memoriam 



OCTOBER FIFTEENTH 

Calm and still light on yon great plain 
That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, 
And crowded farms and lessening towers, 

To mingle with the bounding main. 

Calm and deep peace in this wide air, 
These leaves that redden to the fall ; 
And in my heart, if calm at all, 

If any calm, a calm despair. 



In Memoriam 



OCTOBER SIXTEENTH 

To Sleep I give my powers away; 

My will is bondsman to the dark ; 

I sit within a helmless bark, 
And with my heart I muse and say : 

[ i°6] 



O heart, how fares it with thee now, 
That thou should'st fail from thy desire, 
Who scarcely darest to inquire, 
"What is it makes me beat so low?" 

In Memoriam 

OCTOBER SEVENTEENTH 

Such clouds of nameless trouble cross 

All night below the darken'd eyes; 

With morning wakes the will, and cries, 
"Thou shalt not be the fool of loss." 



In Memoriam 



OCTOBER EIGHTEENTH 
I sometimes hold it half a sin 

To put in words the grief I feel ; 
For words, like Nature, half reveal 
And half conceal the Soul within. 

But, for the unquiet heart and brain, 

A use in measured language lies ; 

The sad mechanic exercise, 
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. 

In Memoriam 

OCTOBER NINETEENTH 

In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, 
Like coarsest clothes against the cold ; 
But that large grief which these enfold 
Is given in outline and no more. 

In Memoriam 
[ '°7 ] 



OCTOBER TWENTIETH 

One writes, that "Other friends remain," 
That "Loss is common to the race" — 
And common is the commonplace, 

And vacant chaff well meant for grain. 

That loss is common would not make 

My own less bitter, rather more: 

Too common ! Never morning wore 

To evening, but some heart did break. 

In Memoriam 

OCTOBER TWENTY-FIRST 

I hold 
That it becomes no man to nurse despair, 
But in the teeth of clench'd antagonisms 
To follow up the worthiest till he die. 

The Princess 

OCTOBER TWENTY-SECOND 

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, 
Tears from the depth of some divine despair 
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, 
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, 
And thinking of the days that are no more. 

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, 
That brings our friends up from the underworld, 
Sad as the last which reddens over one 
That sinks with all we love below the verge ; 
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 

The Princess 
[ .08] 



OCTOBER TWENTY-THIRD 

My princess, O my princess ! true she errs, 

But in her own grand way : being herself 

Three times more noble than threescore of men, 

She sees herself in every woman else, 

And so she wears her error like a crown 

To blind the truth and me. 

The Princess 

i 

OCTOBER TWENTY-FOURTH 

Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height : 

What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang) 

In height and cold, the splendour of the hills ? 

But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease 

To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, 

To sit a star upon the sparkling spire; 

And come, for Love is of the valley, come, 

For Love is of the valley, come thou down 

And find him. 

The Princess 

OCTOBER TWENTY-FIFTH 

Yet in the long years liker must they grow; 

The man be more of woman, she of man; 

He gain in sweetness and in moral height, 

Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world ; 

She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, 

Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind ; 

Till at the last she set herself to man, 

Like perfect music unto noble words. 

The Princess 

[ I0 9 ] 



OCTOBER TWENTY-SIXTH 

Dear, but let us type them now 
In our own lives, and this proud watchword rest 
Of equal; seeing either sex alone 
Is half itself, and in true marriage lies 
Nor equal, nor unequal : each fulfils 
Defecl: in each, and always thought in thought, 
Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow, 
The single pure and perfect animal, 
The two-cell'd heart beating, with one full stroke, 

Life. 

The Princess 

OCTOBER TWENTY-SEVENTH 

Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens? 
If all the world were falcons, what of that ? 
The wonder of the eagle were the less, 
But he not less the eagle. Happy days 
Roll onward, leading up the golden year. 

The Golden Year 

OCTOBER TWENTY-EIGHTH 

Less of sentiment than sense 
Had Katie ; not illiterate ; neither one 
Who dabbling in the fount of ficlive tears, 
And nursed by mealy-mouth'd philanthropies, 
Divorce the Feeling from her mate the Deed. 

The Brook 



[.no] 



OCTOBER TWENTY-NINTH 

O Katie, what I suffer'd for your sake ! 

For in I went, and calPd old Philip out 

To show the farm : full willingly he rose : 

He led me thro' the short sweet-smelling lanes 

Of his wheat-suburb, babbling as he went. 

He praised his land, his horses, his machines ; 

He praised his ploughs, his cows, his hogs, his dogs ; 

He praised his hens, his geese, his guinea-hens ; 

His pigeons, who in session on their roofs 

Approved him, bowing at their own deserts : 

Then from the plaintive mother's teat he took 

Her blind and shuddering puppies, naming each, 

And naming those, his friends, for whom they 

were: 

Then crost the common into Darnley chase 

To show Sir Arthur's deer. 

The Brook 

OCTOBER THIRTIETH 

Then, while I breathed in sight of haven, he, 
Poor fellow, could he help it ? recommenced, 
And ran thro' all the coltish chronicle, 
Wild Will, Black Bess, Tantivy, Tallyho, 
Reform, White Rose, Bellerophon, the Jilt, 
Arbaces, and Phenomenon, and the rest, 
Till, not to die a listener, I arose, 
And with me Philip, talking still ; and so 
We turn'd our foreheads from the falling sun, 
And following our own shadows thrice as long 
As when they follow'd us from Philip's door, 



Arrived, and found the sun of sweet content 
Re-risen in Katie's eyes, and all things well. 

the Brook 

OCTOBER THIRTY-FIRST 

And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, 

Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers, 

Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be. 

The Princess 



r»»] 



NOVEMBER 



NOVEMBER FIRST 

TO-NIGHT the winds began to rise 
And roar from yonder dropping day: 
The last red leaf is whirl'd away, 
The rooks are blown about the skies ; 

The forest crack'd, the waters curPd, 

The cattle huddled on the lea ; 

And wildly dash'd on tower and tree 

The sunbeam strikes along the world. 

In Memoriam 

NOVEMBER SECOND 

Put down the passions that make earth Hell ! 
Down with ambition, avarice, pride, 
Jealousy, down ! cut off from the mind 
The bitter springs of anger and fear ; 
Down too, down at your own fireside, 
With the evil tongue and the evil ear, 

For each is at war with mankind. 

Maud 

NOVEMBER THIRD 

His gain is loss ; for he that wrongs his friend 
Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about 
[ "3 ] 



A silent court of justice in his breast, 
Himself the judge and jury, and himself 
The prisoner at the bar, ever condemn'd : 
And that drags down his life. 



Sea Dreams 



NOVEMBER FOURTH 

Home they brought her warrior dead : 

She nor swoon'd, nor utter'd cry : 
All her maidens, watching, said, 
"She must weep or she will die." 

Then they praised him, soft and low, 
CalPd him worthy to be loved, 

Truest friend and noblest foe ; 
Yet she neither spoke nor moved. 



The Princess 



NOVEMBER FIFTH 

Stole a maiden from her place, 
Lightly to the warrior stept, 

Took the face-cloth from the face ; 
Yet she neither moved nor wept. 

Rose a nurse of ninety years, 

Set his child upon her knee — 
Like summer tempest came her tears — 
"Sweet my child, I live for thee." 



The Princess 



["+] 



NOVEMBER SIXTH 

As these white robes are soiled and dark, 

To yonder shining ground ; 
As this pale taper's earthly spark, 

To yonder argent round ; 
So shows my soul before the Lamb, 

My spirit before Thee; 
So in mine earthly house I am, 

To that I hope to be. 
Break up the heavens, O Lord ! and far, 

Thro' all yon starlight keen, 
Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star, 

In raiment white and clean. 



St. Agnes'" E<ve 



NOVEMBER SEVENTH 

Again the voice spake unto me: 
"Thou art so steep'd in misery, 
Surely 'twere better not to be. 

"Thine anguish will not let thee sleep, 
Not any train of reason keep : 
Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep." 

The Tivo Pokes 



NOVEMBER EIGHTH 

I said that "all the years invent; 
Each month is various to present 
The world with some development. 
[ "5] 



"Were this not well, to bide mine hour, 
Tho' watching from a ruin'd tower 
How grows the day of human power?" 

The Tivo Voices 
NOVEMBER NINTH 

A second voice was at mine ear, 

A little whisper silver-clear, 

A murmur, "Be of better cheer." 

As from some blissful neighbourhood 
A notice faintly understood, 

"I see the end, and know the good." 

The Two Voices 

NOVEMBER TENTH 

A little hint to solace woe, 
A hint, a whisper breathing low, 
"I may not speak of what I know." 

Like an ^Eolian harp that wakes 

No certain air, but overtakes 

Far thought with music that it makes: 

Such seem'd the whisper at my side. 

The T<wo Voices 

NOVEMBER ELEVENTH 

Forgive my grief for one removed, 
Thy creature, whom I found so fair. 
I trust he lives in thee, and there 

I find him worthier to be loved. 

In Memoriam 

[ ••«] 



NOVEMBER TWELFTH 

Words weaker than your grief would make 

Grief more. 'Twere better I should cease; 

Although myself could almost take 

The place of him that sleeps in peace. 

To J. S. 

NOVEMBER THIRTEENTH 

A shadow flits before me, 

Not thou, but like to thee ; 

Ah Christ, that it were possible 

For one short hour to see 

The souls we loved, that they might tell us 

What and where they be. 



Maud 



NOVEMBER FOURTEENTH 
Yet pity for a horse o'er-driven, 

And love in which my hound has part, 
Can hang no weight upon my heart 
In its assumptions up to heaven ; 

And I am so much more than these, 
As thou, perchance, art more than I, 
And yet I spare them sympathy, 

And I would set their pains at ease. 



In Memoriam 



NOVEMBER FIFTEENTH 

Love is and was my Lord and King, 
And in his presence I attend 
To hear the tidings of my friend, 

Which every hour his couriers bring. 

[ "7l 



In Memoriam 



NOVEMBER SIXTEENTH 

Love is and was my King and Lord, 
And will be, tho' as yet I keep 
Within his court on earth, and sleep 

Encompass'd by his faithful guard, 

And hear at times a sentinel 

That moves about from place to place, 

And whispers to the vast of space 

Among the worlds, that all is well. 

* In Memoriam 

NOVEMBER SEVENTEENTH 

Yet is there one true line, the pearl of pearls ; 

" Man dreams of Fame while woman wakes to love." 

True : Love, tho' Love were of the grossest, carves 

A portion from the solid present, eats 

And uses, careless of the rest ; but Fame, 

The Fame that follows death is nothing to us ; 

And what is Fame in life but half-disfame, 

And counterchanged with darkness? 

Vi<vien 

NOVEMBER EIGHTEENTH 

Stabb'd through the heart's affections to the heart ! 
Seeth'd like the kid in its own mother's milk ! 
Kill'd with a word worse than a life of blows! 
I thought that he was gentle, being great : 

God, that I had loved a smaller man! 

1 should have found in him a greater heart. 

Vivien 

[ »«] 



NOVEMBER NINETEENTH 

Love un returned is like the fragrant flame 
Folding the slaughter of the sacrifice 

Offered to gods upon an altarthrone. 

To 



NOVEMBER TWENTIETH 

I made them lay their hands in mine and swear 

To reverence the King, as if he were 

Their conscience, and their conscience as their 

King, 

To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 

To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, 

To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, 

To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, 

To love one maiden only, cleave to her, 

And worship her by years of noble deeds, 

Until they won her. 

Guinevere 



NOVEMBER TWENTY-FIRST 

The stern were mild when thou wert by, 
The flippant put himself to school 
And heard thee, and the brazen fool 

Was soften'd, and he knew not why ; 

While I, thy dearest, sat apart, 

And felt thy triumph was as mine; 

And loved them more, that they were thine, 

The graceful tact, the Christian art; 
[ "9] 



Not mine the sweetness or the skill, 
But mine the love that will not tire, 
And, born of love, the vague desire 

That spurs an imitative will. 



In Memoriam 



NOVEMBER TWENTY-SECOND 
And thus he bore without abuse 
The grand old name of gentleman, 
Defamed by every charlatan, 
And soil'd with all ignoble use. 



In Memoriam 



NOVEMBER TWENTY-THIRD 

Ah God, for a man with heart, head, hand, 
Like some of the simple great ones gone 
For ever and ever by, 
One still strong man in a blatant land, 
Whatever they call him, what care I, 
Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat, — one 
Who can rule and dare not lie. 

And ah for a man to arise in me, 
That the man I am may cease to be ! 



NOVEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH 

Yea too, myself from myself I guard, 
For often a man's own angry pride 
Is cap and bells for a fool. 



Maud 



Maud 



[ !20] 



NOVEMBER TWENTY-FIFTH 

Half fearful that, with self at strife 

I take myself to task ; 
Lest of the fullness of my life 
I leave an empty flask. 

Will Waterproof's Monologue 

NOVEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH 

And slow and sure comes up the golden year. 

When wealth no more shall rest in mounded heaps, 
But smit with freer light shall slowly melt 
In many streams to fatten lower lands, 
And light shall spread, and man be liker man 
Thro' all the season of the golden year. 

The Golden Year 

NOVEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH 
But where the path we walk'd began 
To slant the fifth autumnal slope, 
As we descended following Hope, 
There sat the Shadow fear'd of man ; 

Who broke our fair companionship, 
And spread his mantle dark and cold ; 
And wrapt thee formless in the fold, 

And dull'd the murmur on thy lip ; 

And bore thee where I could not see 

Nor follow, tho' I walk in haste ; 

And think, that somewhere in the waste 

The Shadow sits and waits for me. 

In Memoriam 

[»> ] 



NOVEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH 

If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep, 
I heard a voice "believe no more" 
And heard an ever-breaking shore 

That tumbled in the Godless deep; 

A warmth within the breast would melt 
The freezing reason's colder part, 
And like a man in wrath the heart 

Stood up and answer'd "I have felt." 



In Memoriam 



NOVEMBER TWENTY-NINTH 

How sweet to have a common faith ! 
To hold a common scorn of death ! 
And at a burial to hear 

The creaking cords which wound and eat 
Into my human heart, whene'er 
Earth goes to earth, with grief, not fear, 
With hopeful grief, were passing sweet! 

Supposed Confessions 



NOVEMBER THIRTIETH 

A grief not uninformed, and dull, 
Hearted with hope, of hope as full 
As is the blood with life, or night 
And a dark cloud with rich moonlight. 
To stand beside a grave, and see 
The red small atoms wherewith we 

[ ■«] 



Are built, and smile in calm, and say — 
"These little motes and grains shall be 
Clothed on with immortality 
More glorious than the noon of day." 

Supposed Confessions 



[ »j] 



DECEMBER 

DECEMBER FIRST 

GREAT deeds cannot die : 
They with the sun and moon renew their 
light 
For ever, blessing those that look on them. 

The Princess 

DECEMBER SECOND 

Not clinging to some ancient saw; 

Not master'd by some modern term ; 

Not swift nor slow to change, but firm 
And in its season bring the law. 

" Love Thou Thy Land " 

DECEMBER THIRD 

Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace ? we 

have made them a curse, 
Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not 

its own ; 
And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better 

or worse 

Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on 

his own hearthstone ? 

Maud 

[ "5 ] 



DECEMBER FOURTH 

Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, 

From yon blue heavens above us bent 
The grand old gardener and his wife 

Smile at the claims of long descent. 
Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 

'Tis only noble to be good. 
Kind hearts are more than coronets, 

And simple faith than Norman blood. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere 

DECEMBER FIFTH 

Look thro' mine eyes with thine. True wife, 

Round my true heart thine arms entwine ; 
My other dearer life in life, 

Look thro' my very soul with thine ! 
Untouch'd with any shade of years, 

May those kind eyes for ever dwell ! 
They have not shed a many tears, 

Dear eyes, since first I knew them well. 

'The Miller s Daughter 

DECEMBER SIXTH 

Thou who stealest fire, 
From the fountains of the past, 
To glorify the present ; oh, haste, 

Visit my low desire ! 
Strengthen me, enlighten me ! 
I faint in this obscurity, 
Thou dewy dawn of memory. 



Ode to Memory 



[i*6] 



DECEMBER SEVENTH 

This fine old world of ours is but a child 
Yet in the go-cart. Patience ! Give it time 
To learn its limbs : there is a hand that guides. 

The Princess 

DECEMBER EIGHTH 

It is better to fight for the good, than to rail at 
the ill; 

I have felt with my native land, I am one with 

my kind, 
I embrace the purpose of God, and the doom as- 

sign'd. 

Maud 

DECEMBER NINTH 

For all things serve their time 
Toward that great year of equal mights and rights, 
Nor would I fight with iron laws, in the end 
Found golden : let the past be past. 

The Princess 
DECEMBER TENTH 

To-morrow yet would reap to-day, 
As we bear blossom of the dead ; 
Earn well the thrifty months, nor wed 
Raw Haste, half-sister to Delay. 

"Love Thou Thy Land" 



I "7] 



DECEMBER ELEVENTH 

O thou that after toil and storm 

Mayst seem to have reach'd a purer air, 
Whose faith has centre everywhere, 
Nor cares to fix itself to form, 

Leave thou thy sister when she prays, 
Her early Heaven, her happy views ; 
Nor thou with shadow'd hint confuse 

A life that leads melodious days. 



DECEMBER TWELFTH 

Her eyes are homes of silent prayer. 



In Memoriam 



In Memoriam 



DECEMBER THIRTEENTH 

Clara, Clara Vere de Vere, 

If Time be heavy on your hands, 
Are there no beggars at your gate, 

Nor any poor about your lands? 
Oh ! teach the orphan-boy to read, 

Or teach the orphan-girl to sew, 
Pray Heaven for a human heart, 

And let the foolish yeoman go. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere 

DECEMBER FOURTEENTH 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

There stands a spectre in your hall : 

The guilt of blood is at your door : 

You changed a wholesome heart to gall. 

[ »8] 



You held your course without remorse, 
To make him trust his modest worth, 

And, last, you fix'd a vacant stare, 
And slew him with your noble birth. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere 

DECEMBER FIFTEENTH 

But, sir, you know 

That these two parties still 'divide the world — 

Of those that want, and those that have : and still 

The same old sore breaks out from age to age 

With much the same result. 

Walking to the Mail 

DECEMBER SIXTEENTH 

We pass : the path that each man trod 
Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds : 
What fame is left for human deeds 

In endless age ? It rests with God. 

O hollow wraith of dying fame, 
Fade wholly, while the soul exults, 
And self-infolds the large results 

Of force that would have forged a name. 

In Memoriam 

DECEMBER SEVENTEENTH 

Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the 

battle flags were furl'd 
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the 

world. 

[ »9] 



There the common sense of most shall hold a fret- 
ful realm in awe, 

And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in uni- 
versal law. 

Locksley Hall 

DECEMBER EIGHTEENTH 

I have lived my life, and that which I have done 

May He within himself make pure ! but thou, 

If thou shouldst never see my face again, 

Pray for my soul. 

Morte W Arthur 

DECEMBER NINETEENTH 

More things are wrought by prayer 
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy 

voice 
Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
For what are men better than sheep or goats 
That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
Both for themselves and those who call them friend ? 
For so the whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 

Morte D" Arthur 
DECEMBER TWENTIETH 

There is none that does his work, not one ; 
A touch of their office might have sufficed, 
But the churchmen fain would kill their church, 

As the churches have kill'd their Christ. 

Maud 
[ '30] 



DECEMBER TWENTY-FIRST 

I am a part of all that I have met. 

Ulysses 

DECEMBER TWENTY-SECOND 
O living will that shalt endure 

When all that seems shall suffer shock, 

Rise in the spiritual rock, 
Flow thro' our deeds and make them pure, 

That we may lift from out of dust 

A voice as unto him that hears, 

A cry above the conquer'd years 
To one that with us works, and trust, 

With faith that comes of self-control, 
The truths that never can be proved 
Until we close with all we loved, 

And all we flow from, soul in soul. 

In Memoriam 

DECEMBER TWENTY-THIRD 

We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move ; 
The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun ; 
The dark Earth follows wheePd in her ellipse ; 
And human things returning on themselves 
Move onward, leading up the golden year. 

The Golden Year 



[131] 



DECEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH 

The time draws near the birth of Christ: 
The moon is hid; the. night is still; 
The Christmas bells from hill to hill 

Answer each other in the mist. 

Each voice four changes on the wind, 

That now dilate, and now decrease, 

Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace, 

Peace and goodwill, to all mankind. 

In Memoriam 

DECEMBER TWENTY-FIFTH 

And, further inland, voices echoed — "Come 
With all good things, and war shall be no more." 
At this a hundred bells began to peal, 
That with the sound I woke, and heard indeed 
The clear church-bells ring in the Christmas morn. 

Morte D" Arthur 

DECEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH 

But we grow old. Ah ! when shall all men's good 
Be each man's rule, and universal Peace 
Lie like a shaft of light across the land, 
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, 
Thro' all the circle of the golden year ? 

The Golden Tear 

DECEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH 

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil ; 
Death closes all : but something ere the end, 
[ l 3 2 ] 



Some work of noble note, may yet be done, 
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. 

Ulysses 

DECEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH 

All things are taken from us, and become 
Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past. 

The Lotos-Eaters 

DECEMBER TWENTY-NINTH 

Tho* much is taken, much abides ; and tho' 
We are not now that strength which in old days 
Moved earth and heaven ; that which we are, we 

are; 
One equal temper of heroic hearts, 
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 

Ulysses 

DECEMBER THIRTIETH 

Full knee-deep lies the winter snow, 
And the winter winds are wearily sighing : 
Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow, 
And tread softly and speak low, 
For the old year lies a-dying. 

Old year, you must not die ; 

You came to us so readily, 

You lived with us so steadily, 

Old year, you shall not die. 

The Death of the Old Year 

[ '33] 



DECEMBER THIRTY-FIRST 

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, 
The flying cloud, the frosty light : 
The year is dying in the night ; 

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. 

Ring out the old, ring in the new, 
Ring, happy bells, across the snow : 
The year is going, let him go ; 

Ring out the false, ring in the true. 

Ring out the grief that saps the mind, 
For those that here we see no more; 
Ring out the feud of rich and poor, 

Ring in redress to all mankind. 

Ring in the valiant man and free, 
The larger heart, the kindlier hand ; 
Ring out the darkness of the land, 

Ring in the Christ that is to be. 



In Memoriam 



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